#deep space nine season 1

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k d e e p s p a c e n i n e created by rick berman, michael piller [dax, s1ep8]

'As for you, there is one favor I would ask.' - tandro

'Of course.' - dax

'Live, Jadzia Dax. Live a long and fresh and wonderful life.' - tandro

[garaks-padded-bra]

It’s just that I fell in love with a war

And nobody told me it ended

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 109 (Mar. 14, 1993) - “Move Along Home”

Teleplay by: Frederick Rappaport, Lisa Rich & Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci Written by: Michael Piller Directed by: David Carson

This is the episode where…

Sisko makes first contact with a game-obsessed species, so they make him and his crew hopscotch for their lives, while Quark places bets because it’s his fault. No one thinks this is funny, and it is treated with the utmost seriousness, but also it’s fine for some reason.

The Breakdown

It’s an auspicious day on DS9 as Sisko and his chief staff (Kira, Dax, & Bashir) prepare to make first contact with an official delegation from ‘the Wadi’, a new species from the still-mysterious-and-exciting Gamma Quadrant. Naturally Sisko rolls out the red carpet, but his guests have little interest in diplomatic formality, and ask to be taken directly to Quark’s bar so they can play his games of chance. What could go wrong?

Initially, not as much as you’d think. …Initially.

The Wadi are quite taken with Quark’s Dabo table (essentially, Space roulette), much to Quark’s chagrin, because they keep winning. Since Sisko is also kinda bummed that his new guests seem to have no use for him, he selects Quark for babysitting duty, leaving express instructions to keep the Wadi happy. Unfortunately, Quark is… well, Quark, so he promptly orders his staff to start cheating so he can win his money back. Predictably, the Wadi call bullshit on Quark's scam, and insist that the only way to reconcile their grievance with him is to play “an honest game,” and they’re not talking about monopoly!

…because they’re aliens and that’s a human thing, but they did bring their own board game, called ‘chula’. With the opening of a box, Quark’s Dabo table magically scientifically transforms into another gaming surface [It’s hard to describe so feel free to reference the weird triangle frame, with multiple bridging levels, pictured above]. Basically, the game starts Quark off with four pieces which are placed near the top of the “board,” and then he rolls the space-dice in order to get them safely down to the lowest level, while placing bets. Simple enough, right? If you said yes, then …come on. Really? This is Star Trek, so clearly there’s gonna be a catch.

You see somehow the game has simultaneously transported Sisko, Kira, Dax, and Bashir (who were all asleep in their quarters) into some kind of virtual/alternate plane of existence (it is never explained). It turns out that the pieces on the board are all avatars representing Sisko and the gang, who are made to participate in a series of increasingly difficult (and seemingly dangerous) tasks. Of course all of this is unbeknownst to Quark, who unwittingly chooses the difficulty-and-nature of each new challenge, while placing wagers on their success.

Eventually Odo figures out that something is wrong when Sisko and his team fail to show up for work the following morning. His investigation leads him to Quark, who is finally brought up to speed, but unfortunately it’s too-little-too-late. The Wadi explain that the only way for Quark to get his people back is to safely navigate them to the end of the game. Naturally, this goes poorly, and Bashir is evaporated (he was kind of being annoying though, so honestly no big loss), and the others all fall down a bottomless cave shaft to their doom. Quark loses. The end.

Just kidding.

I mean, Quark does lose, but Sisko and co. are all perfectly fine, and instantly transported back into the bar safe and sound (somehow). Upon Quark’s realization that his friends (using the term loosely here) were never in danger, the Wadi are like “well duh, it’s just a game, man. But also you’re a douche,” and make their exit. Since a major diplomatic scandal has presumably been avoided on the grounds that no one died, the Wadi are free to go; likewise Quark is also off the hook for... reasons, I guess.

The end. For real this time.

The Verdict

There are a not-insubstantial number of fans who would regard this as the worst episode of the series, and I can see why, but I honestly can’t entirely bring myself to hate on it that much either. The main point of contention for most folk seems to be that the Wadi’s game is ultimately revealed to be harmless after 45 minutes of implying the severity of the situation. It’s a fair criticism, and certainly a part of the reason I won’t be giving this one a high rating, but I think the greater sin is that ‘move along home’ is mostly kinda boring.

Some of my favourite Star Trek episodes are also the most ridiculous, and they succeed specifically by leaning into that silliness. As alluded to in the opening paragraph, one of the games Sisko is forced to play does legitimately involve playing a game of hopscotch while reciting a children’s rhyme. Historically speaking, none of that is inherently out-of-place for Star Trek, and a perfect opportunity for some comic relief, but the scene falls flat, and feels kind of cringy, almost as if everyone involved was embarrassed (except Avery Brooks. That guy always commits). The rest of the episode tries to lean more heavily on traditional life-and-death drama, but even that feels stifled by (I’m guessing) budgetary constraints. Likewise, the sequence with the most impressive set piece (the rocky cliff that everyone except Bashir falls over), drags on for way too long, with the aforementioned lack of pay-off.

But it’s not all bad either. We do get a chance to see a little bit of Quark’s humanity (for lack of a better word) shine through when he believes that he’s responsible for the safety of the players. It’s also nice to see the dynamic between Sisko and his officers in an unconventional situation, and there are a handful of other character moments (which I’ll touch on below) that were enjoyable, if not enough to save the episode outright. Ultimately, there’s no denying this is a ‘growing pains’ episode, but there is something to be said for watching the creative process unfold as the show finds it’s legs, even as it stumbles.

Less “Bleh,” and more “Meh.” I’m giving this…

2 stars (out of 5)

Parting Thoughts

Super-Tech: We need to talk about the Wadi’s technology for a second, because these guys seem pretty stacked, and it’s just sort of brushed over. For starters, they activate the “game board” by opening a small box, that instantly replaces/reconstitutes Quarks Dabo table into an entirely different structure (and then returns it to it’s original state, after they’re done). Then we have Ready-player-Sisko and his team, who are all transported from their bedrooms, and into… somewhere. We know their physical bodies are no longer on the station, and that’s about it. Are they in a holodeck of some kind? Has their consciousness been uploaded into a virtual plane? Are they in some sort of alternate quantum-game-realm? At one point Odo tries to beam over into the Wadi’s ship, hoping to find the missing crew, but he’s thwarted by a bright flash of light that just transports him back into Quark’s bar. However the Wadi do what they do, it’s clear they’re technologically advanced enough to give the Federation a run for it’s money. Bearing in mind, we’re only ever shown how these people apply their technology towards recreational games, but it doesn’t take much to imagine some fairly awesome (and potentially horrifying) alternative applications. At the very least, you’d think they would have made a valuable ally against the Dominion (I mean, who?), but this is the last we’ll hear from the Wadi; Well, at least on this show (they make a brief cameo on ‘Lower Decks’).

Diplomatic Cover-up: I feel like Quark would have faced considerably more severe consequences over scamming the Wadi if this had happened on the Enterprise, but upon further consideration it kind of makes sense that Sisko would let this one slide. After all, the Commander did abandon his guests (who he was responsible for establishing good relations with) just because he was bored; worse yet, he left them alone with Quark! Sure, he’s a lying-capitalist-scumbag, but Sisko knew all that when he blackmailed Quark* into staying on the station! So I figure ol’ Benny decided to keep things quiet, in order to avoid having Quark snitching to Starfleet about how their newly appointed Commander shit the bed on his first major diplomatic assignment. [*it happened in the Pilot, although I failed to mention it in my review]

Parental Guidance may be advised: The closest thing this episode has to a B-Plot, is when Sisko finds out that Jake and Nog spend their downtime together, scoping out the young Bajoran ladies. Sisko has misgivings over this, on the grounds that Nog is both a troublemaker and a Ferengi. Interestingly, I’ve seen a few online threads with people arguing that Sisko is being intolerant towards Nog’s cultural upbringing, but I’m more-or-less with him on this one. Amongst other things, the Ferengi tend to be deeply misogynistic (let’s just say, they got problems, as the show will go on to highlight), so I think it’s reasonable for Sisko to express some concerns about his son taking dating advice from a young man who was raised to believe that women shouldn’t have rights (or clothing). This also nicely plants a seed for Sisko’s own relationship with Nog, as that character becomes further developed.

Security Breach: The previous episode introduced us to Lieutenant Primmin, who was brought in as Starfleet’s Chief security officer (but second to Odo as “head of security” under the Bajoran Provisional Government; gotta love Politics). Primmin shows up again in this episode, when Odo goes up to ops in search of Sisko and Kira. Primmin’s main contribution is when he reluctantly (because regulations) beams Odo into the Wadi ship, and then he’s never heard from again. Like, ever. I’m assuming the original intention was for him to return as a recurring foil for Odo, and was then forgotten/dropped in favour of more pertinent characters and storylines. But according to my headcanon, he was quietly fired (aka “transferred”) due to his critical lack of care and initiative over the disappearance of four chief staff. The dude hardly even sat up in his chair when Odo brought the situation to his attention, which is not a great look. So long Primmin! I’d say you’ll be missed, but I’d largely forgotten you existed in the first place.

[samthetrekkie]

welcome to my tng watch along, where I will post my thoughts on yet another decades-old tv show for my own entertainment. (and anyone who is interested enough :))

wow, picard really is horn-ay for beverly. I thought this was going to be a slow burn thing but he was ready to jump her bones right there on the bridge in front of her son… and why does everyone have history in this anyway? I mean I'm not complaining, I love background stories between characters, but both romances? that was certainly a choice.

I still think q is one of the best characters that came out of star trek, yet undoubtably one of the most annoying. but other than janeway, who just rolls her eyes at him, picard seems like he wants to strangle him at any given moment. picard seems to have some anger managment issues in general... and holodecks?? best star trek invention.

I think data is going to be the missing one in my top 3 autistic-coded favorite characters in star trek. when he infodumped them and said "I'm sorry, I seem to be commenting on everything" and riker was like "no keep going my friend" :)) I think I actually liked riker the best in this one. can't decide on my overall favorite yet, but picard for sure is the most insufferable at the moment. but I'm looking forward to the character development! deanna is a work in progress for me as well so far.

so I'm all in, even after just one single episode. my dad is not convinced yet, but I'm like: the first tos episode wasn't exactly a masterpiece?? (I mean the first kirk tos episode - but even the cage was not a masterpiece, just iconic) and caretaker was not it either. the only first episode in star trek I remember liking was the ds9 one. but I will be coming back to that in…a few years at this rate?

[dragontamerno3]

DS9 S1 E 1-2 - The Emissary Part 1 and 2

About six ish months ago I did a full watch of Star Trek - The Next Generation and I posted a watchalong/episode recap on Facebook and my friends thoroughly enjoyed it, so I thought I’d do the same with DS9, but expand my posting over here. I had watch all of the Treks before Enterprise with my dad when I was a kid but a lot of that time has been blocked out by trauma and so I don’t remember the shows so it’s been like watching them all brand new. I’m looking forward to experiencing DS9 the same way.  This is my first watch-through of the entire series but admittedly this is the show that I *think* I remember the most of from a kid, so I'm pretty interested to see how this goes.

On to the episode recap

Not the biggest fan of it, but it wasn't the worst. The first scenes were WAAAYYY too jumpy/jostled. I get it, both being the product of its time and the fact that its a fight scene/aftermath of a fight scene, but it was not a pleasant experience for me.

I can appreciate the tension between Sisko and Picard and what happened with the Borg. It was a nice touch to bring back that whole tragic situation. That said when Sisko and Picard meet up for the first time, my attention was on Picard cause Sir PatStews acting there with the tone shift was on point.

In this episode Quark is my favorite, though I do think the "deal" Sisko made with Quark was pretty on point for Starfleet officers cause those fuckers are shady af you can't tell me otherwise.

I love Siskos's relationship with Jake already.

Kira is going to be my favorite or at least a treasure to me I already know this but she was kinda meh in this one and gave up waaayyy too easy.

Also loved how they didn't let Miles leave without a goodbye from Picard.

Overall, this was kind of a meh episode, not a fave but not a bad one, just middling.

5/10

[theoraclephobetor]

ladies……. please, allow me. *immediately fucks it up*

[breezybeej]

Hey muties, if you aren't careful, one day your inbox may look like this

[scarletv0id]

It just occurred to me that it’s been over a year since I started watching DS9.

That’s really weird to think about for me because it was such a big part of my life for three solid months of summer.

And it still is! I’m not used to that at all. Usually fandoms come and go for me, and I can cling for awhile but not for too long.

But I’m still happy to say that I’m a part of this one.

[sokorra]

The Rewatch 229: In the Hands of the Prophets

Series: Star Trek: DS9Episode: 1.20 In the Hands of the Prophets (Season 1 Finale; June 21, 1993)Rating: 5/5Redshirt Status: 1/3.5 Content/Trigger Warning: Religious violence. Notable Guest Stars:Louise Fletcher ( Vedek Winn Adami) – Louise Fletcher plays the rule of Winn for several seasons on this show, and is one of the most rememberable side characters on the show. She is also known for…

[startrekdreams]

And here we have Jadzia playing alien hopscotch.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 1, Episode 10

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k d e e p s p a c e n i n e created by rick berman, michael piller [in the hands of the prophets, s1ep20] 'Bajor'

[mylittleredgirl]

i will always love the original version of the deep space nine theme song best, but i do understand why they put more zip to it in the later seasons. breathtaking musical composition, but yeah it's kinda slow for an action/adventure tv theme song, so if you're already remaking the opening sequence to add the defiant, go ahead and punch it up. good idea, good execution.

fully hilarious though that enterprise tried to do the same thing ten years later, because as memeable as faith of the heart is the Skip Intro era, it's really hard to overstate how much vitriol people had about the theme song in real time. i will say that fandom history overstates this a little because it wasn't universally treated as a sin against god, there were at least twelve diehard trekkies out there (including me) who looked at this gorgeous intro sequence paired with a mediocre cover of a rod stewart song and went "hmm. weird choice, but you make a good point, i would like to have strength of the soul and reach any star."

but the star trek fans who like being mad about star trek were frothing at the mouth. it wasn't just silly and bad this was the rallying point for how enterprise was an affront to star trek. they were NOT going to take it lying down, they had torches they had pitchforks, they were nailing a list of grievances to the church door and THE FUCKING THEME SONG HAS LYRICS was thesis #1.

(followed by "why are the vulcans jerks :(" and an itemized list of every single canon inconsistency)

so it is so, so fucking funny to imagine the network meeting that must have taken place sometime in late season two when they were bleeding audience numbers and UPN started making the worst previews of all time ("tune in for next week's SPECIAL ENTERPRISE EVENT: ✨Canamar✨!") (the previews also spoiled the ending of every episode for months, like they weren't just bad they were actively damaging) (it was soooo so hard to have a good time as an enterprise fan in 2003).

so this meeting happens and they go okay. we know what to do here. first up. put "star trek" back in the name (it was just "enterprise" for the first two seasons to "attract a new audience"). next. is there a way we can make this about 9/11. great great good job. can we put jolene in a different catsuit? and then some intern whose job it is to monitor the forums on television without pity timidly reminds them about the torches and pitchforks and they're like oh yeah we should remix the theme song! and the intern is like WHEW so should i book an orchestra for like an hour to do an instrumental version of the closing credits and then bermaga or some clown at UPN is like no no no you're not getting it. the lyrics aren't the problem. they just don't understand our vision because there weren't enough bongos.

[episodicnostalgia]

Episodic Nostalgia: 2025

Well, here we are! Only time will tell what new-and-exciting atrocities/human rights violations we have to look forward to as the new year unveils itself to us, but in the mean time I’ll be carrying on here with more reviews of my favourite state sanctioned propagand- I mean, tv shows from my childhood. Last year I completed the first seasons of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ and ‘Spider-man: The Animated Series’ respectively, before deciding to take a break from both shows, just to keep things fresh around here. As for what’s next, I’ll be following a similar format, alternating between two different series (one live action, and one animated), namely:

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: When I first started this blog, my approach was much less structured, casually jumping back and forth between Star Trek series, with DS9 initially being one of the primary focusses. I reviewed eight episodes before committing to TNG and Spider-man, so it makes sense to pick up where I left off. With ten episodes remaining, I figure I might as well complete the first season while I decide what to do next. Besides, I love that show, so it’s not exactly a hard sell for me.

Batman: The Animated Series: While it wasn't the strongest episode, 'Christmas With the Joker' was a lot of fun to review, and I’ve been meaning to revisit this series ever since I got the Blu Ray boxed set a few years ago. Although, unlike Spider-man, I may take a slightly more lax approach in the order I review them. The Beauty of this series is how effectively each entry stands on its own (with the exception of a few two-parters), so I may skip or jump ahead to certain episodes as I see fit.

To follow up on that last paragraph, I’ve also been considering switching between different animated series more frequently. I expect I’ll stick with Batman for the duration of the DS9 reviews, but I could foresee a point where my Saturday morning cartoon selection becomes more sporadic. Additionally, I’m toying with the idea of more-regularly deviating away from strict episode reviews, similar to some of the “reading break” posts I did last year, but I have nothing concrete planned in that arena for the time being. That being said, If anyone ever finds themselves interested in my opinions over anything even loosely connected to the theme of this blog, feel free to reach out, or ask a question. Obviously, I reserve the right to disregard any suggestions/questions I find disrespectful, or irrelevant, but this kind of stuff is always more fun when other people are engaged.

Anyways, the next review drops on Friday where I’ll be picking up with the somewhat-infamous Deep Space Nine episode, “Move Along Home.” See you then!

[vintagetvstars]

Jeffrey Combs Vs. Tim Russ

Propaganda

Jeffrey Combs - (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise (seasons 1-3)) - MVP of playing a whole roster of characters on various star treks under various amounts of makeup. he auditioned to play riker on next generation but lost the part to jonathan frakes, who remembered him and cast him in a deep space nine episode he directed, and the rest was history. combs eventually appeared in 33 episodes of deep space nine, 11 of enterprise and one of voyager, as a total of eight different characters (more if you count mirror universe brunt, the various weyouns, and a fleeting cameo as a holosuite guest in the ds9 finale). once he played both weyoun and brunt in the same episode!

Tim Russ - (Star Trek: Voyager) - No text propaganda

- No Negative Propaganda Please -

Master Poll List | How to submit propaganda | What is vintage? (FAQ)

Additional propaganda below the cut

Jeffrey Combs:

Tim Russ:

[quasi-normalcy]

Actually, you know what? Ever since I learned that Ira Steven Behr signed that grossly unfair letter against Jonathan Glazer, I've been forced to kind of reevaluate some of my interpretations of things in Deep Space Nine.

Like Section 31. I was willing to suppose that it was always and only intended to be villainous. But knowing as I do now that the showrunner who included it is perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to genocide, I'm forced to wonder...was it critical? Was it?

Like, let's consider canon here. In "Statistical Probabilities", Bashir and the other augments calculate, in no uncertain terms, that the Federation can't win its war with the Dominion. Their model even accurately forecasts things that happen later in the series: the Romulans declaring war on the Dominion; a full-scale revolt on Cardassia Prime. The end of the episode kind of pooh-poohs their model, like, "Well you couldn't even forecast what Serena would do in this room" but like...(1) the premise is basically lifted from Asimov's psychohistory concept, which works on populations rather than individuals, and (2) there's even a line of dialogue in the episode saying that the models become *less* uncertain the further you go in time. And indeed, the Federation ultimately wins the war not because any of their assumptions were wrong, but because there was another factor that they weren't aware of: the Changeling plague. The plague that had, of course, been engineered by Section 31 to exterminate the Changelings.

So again you have to ask: *was* this critical? Or was the real message that a black ops division willing to commit genocide is necessary to preserve a "utopian" society, no matter how squeamish it makes a naïve idealist like Bashir? And yeah, the war is ultimately won by an act of compassion, but only *after* Bashir sinks to S31's level by kidnapping Sloane and invading his mind with illicit technology. So...is this really a win for idealism?

And then we have the Jem'Hadar. They're a race of slave soldiers, genetically engineered to require a compound that only the Changelings can give them. By any reasonable standard, they're victims. And yet, the series goes out of its way, especially in "The Abandoned", to establish that they're irredeemable. You can't save them. Victims of colonialism they may be, but your only choice is to kill them, or else they--preternaturally violent almost from the moment that they're born--*will* kill you. And of course, I've long assumed that this was just a really unfortunate attempt to subvert what had become the standard "I, Borg" style Star Trek trope where your enemies become less scary once you get to know them, but like. I would say that there's pretty close to a one-to-one correspondence between this premise and the ideology excusing the mass murder of children in Gaza.

Or the Maquis. There's this line at the start of "For the Uniform" where Sisko tells Eddington that he regards the refugees in the Demilitarized Zone as being "Victims of the Maquis", because they've kept alive the forlorn hope that they would ever be allowed to return to their homes and...Jesus, when I write it out like that, Hello, Palestinian Right of Return. [The episode of course ends with Sisko bombing a Maquis colony with chemical weapons, though it is somewhat less objectionable in practice than I'm making it sound here].

And you know what...I get that DS9 is a show that's intended to have moral complexity, and to be kind of ambiguous in a lot places, and not to give you simple answers and so on. And I'm *not* trying to do the standard JK Rowling/ Joss Whedon/ Justin Roiland thing where a creator falls from grace for whatever reason and people comb through their oeuvre to show that they were always wicked and fans were stupid for not seeing it earlier or whatever. But I will say that these things hit different when you know that the series was show-run for five seasons, comprising every episode that I've just named, by a man who would go on to sign his name to a letter maliciously quoting Jonathan Glazer out of context to drag him for condemning an active genocide. And given that I've been a fan of DS9 for basically my entire life, this is deeply unsettling to me.